Don't Ever Look Back
by TheMacUnleashed
Summary: A night out with Ahsoka makes Barriss realize that she isn't ready to give up what they have. Barriss/Ahsoka; T for alcohol use and references to adult topics.


_A/n: _Title comes from the song "Teenage Dream," which is by Katie Perry originally, although the only version I like is the one by the _Glee_ cast. Either way, it's not mine.

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><p>Barriss doesn't <em>do<em> clubbing. It's entirely unbecoming of a Jedi, and she can't help but think of the endless consequences that would face her if Master Unduli found out that she had left her men under Cody's supervision and was currently standing pressed against a bar, colored circles of lights bouncing off the walls in patterns impossible to pick out. The floor is dark and speckled with some sort of silver glitter that makes it look like she's stepping on crushed gemstones; the walls, black and reflective. And it's probably telling that she's observing the place and all of the possible exits and entrances instead of joining the writhing mass of bodies on the floor in front of her.

Ahsoka reappears and presses something into her hand. "Loosen up," she says with a grin. "We've escaped."

Barriss glances at the liquid and hesitantly tastes it. She doesn't know what it is; she's just trusting Ahsoka right now, which is probably a foolish idea, like everything else that's going on tonight. "I don't know if I'd call it that."

"We aren't trapped. We aren't Jedi tonight. We're _free_. C'mon. You've been _proper_ for so long you don't remember how to have fun." Ahsoka's slim fingers encircle her wrist. "Not _that_ kind of fun, either," and her voice has that devilish edge that shouldn't be found with anyone who grew up in the Temple.

Barriss sets her drink down on the bar. "What are you suggesting?"

"What do you _think_? We're in a dance club. Come on." Ahsoka pulls, and she reluctantly follows. This whole affair, her and Ahsoka's relationship, has led them to perform some maddening stunts that she wouldn't do for anyone else, and it's nearly gotten them caught several times-the worst being when Ahsoka had insisted on going out to Coruscant's night scene, which thankfully ended before it began, when Master Koon caught them trying to steal a transport and kindly let them off with a warning-but this is the first time that they've done something so risky off-planet. Granted, they're only out here for training, but _still_. There's a war going on. Shouldn't they be doing more than pressing into a crowd of people from all species, who wave and twist their bodies to a beat that vaguely resembles the music?

Ahsoka looks back at her, eyes bright as a flash of blue light reflects them. Like she can read her mind she says, "We're young, Barriss. What in the nine hells happened to rebelling when you were young? Having _fun_?"

"We shouldn't," she hisses, trying to speak quietly and be heard over the music. She doesn't want anyone to know that they're Jedi, in case there are Separatist supporters hiding in the crowd. "It-_this_-isn't permitted-"

Ahsoka pulls her near and reaches up, her hands gripping Barriss' neck. They kiss, Ahsoka's hands digging through her hair, and Force forsake it all, there's something about feeling Ahsoka's lips on hers while they're here, in a public place, that makes her heart pound in a way that has nothing to do with nerves (though those are there too; this is risky and foolish, and even the excitement she feels isn't enough to make her forget _that_).

"It's not permitted, and that's why we should _leave_," Ahsoka practically snarls. "Kriff the Jedi. What have they ever done for us?"

Barriss glances at her, heart pounding, and several severely un-Jedilike thoughts racing through her head. "You can't believe that. Come on, Ahsoka, they raised us..."

"They told us not to do this." Ahsoka places a hand on her breast and moves even closer. Barriss is conscious of the crowd around them; what if they get caught? What if someone else is rebelling too, someone who will hold this over their heads? "Were they right?" Ahsoka says, barely perceptible over the loud music that's entirely out of Barriss' comfort zone.

"I..." she feels Ahsoka's hands tracing over her body and worries that someone is watching; they're buried in the crowd, after all. But they fit in. Here there's nothing unusual about their feelings for each other. They're part of something bigger here, something that's okay.

"You're too uptight. Too tight in general; you aren't even dancing," Ahsoka says-yells, really, over the music. "But just once, you need to say what we both know-the Council and everyone; they're wrong. We should leave."

Barriss glares at the first part and tries to move her hips and arms with a bit more enthusiasm. She's a Jedi who has been doing acrobatics with a lightsaber practically since she could walk; she's a good deal more flexible than the pair of drunk Tammuz-an women that are rubbing up next to them.

The second part, though; she can't really respond to that. She and Ahsoka have been together for seven months by Coruscant's standards (a miraculously long time to have gone without either of their masters finding out, although Anakin really isn't around that much, and they do spend more time at Ahsoka's quarters than her own) but she still hasn't had the courage to ask herself if she would choose Ahsoka over all of the Jedi.

(Or maybe she just doesn't want to look back and admit that this affair, this is one of the most foolish things that she's ever been involved in, that she's entirely betrayed Master Unduli and dishonored all of her teaching. That in the end, she probably isn't loyal enough to go with Ahsoka-who really will walk away; Barriss doesn't doubt that-and that everything they're doing right now will be completely pointless in the end.)

She's a coward, but tonight's not about that.

"I thought we were supposed to be dancing, not thinking about running off," she yells, and begins to move with some genuine enthusiasm.

For a moment Ahsoka looks surprised, and then slightly suspicious, like she knows that Barriss is avoiding it. But she lets it go, like Barriss knew she would, and begins to dance perfectly in time with the music. Her headdress sparkles as a dot of red light bounces off of it, and Barriss wishes that everything in life could be this simple, that they could always have this sort of simple, teenage freedom.

Jedi don't get that, though; they just get to dance until they're due back in an hour, at which point they get to leave the club and go do the sort of things that lovers usually do, wherever or whoever they are. And, Barriss thinks as she and Ahsoka slip back inside just as the gray clouds are being tinted with gold, that's enough for a Jedi. It isn't enough for forever, but she doesn't dwell on that.


End file.
